


and if i told you 'flowering season's over'?

by birdring (twoif)



Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: 2017 spring split, M/M, nothing happens and it's not romantic, two old men remembering the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 16:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15952847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoif/pseuds/birdring
Summary: The truth was that Sehyeong and Seongwoong ran into each other from time to time, that was all."China's not so far, really," Sehyeong mused. "I could come visit with my girlfriend. Come to one of your games. Cheer for the other team, of course.""You're still dating that girl in China?"Sehyeong snorted, looking at Seongwoong with a patient expression, like he was a particularly slow child. "My girlfriend lives in Seoul, you idiot.""Don't come," Seongwoong said gruffly, embarrassed. "We're only allowed to see each other once a year, so this is it.""Don't be like that, Ing-ong," Sehyeong sang out, and Seongwoong dodged the hand Sehyeong stretched out to ruffle his hair, maybe, or pinch his cheek. "We might see each other for MSI, you know."





	and if i told you 'flowering season's over'?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eloboosting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloboosting/gifts).



The first time Seongwoong brought it up, it was March and it was a joke. Sehyeong messaged him through the league client, really the only way they still had to interact. It was out of the blue still, their last chat history months old. It surprised Seongwoong when he glanced at the screen. He hadn't realized that he'd never asked Sehyeong about China before going, but the last time they spoke Seongwoong had still been with SKT, or at least not openly with Vici, and it was just, _are you streaming?_ They were pros, both of them, veterans well-versed in not saying anything personal where prying eyes could see and take screenshots and keep forever.

The opening this time was the same. _on douyu?_ Sehyeong asked, and when Seongwoong told him no, _how's china?_

 _not much different_ , Seongwoong typed back. _easyhoon managing me and mandu, same old, same old._

 _lolololololol_ , Sehyeong wrote. _tell mlxg hi when he kills you in the jungle._

 _you could come visit_ , Seongwoong joked. _play my support for a day. vici would love it._

 _and what will easyhoon think of that?_ Sehyeong asked, and that, even toneless through text, was a statement barbed at both ends that Seongwoong had no intention of answering. He stared at it, like if he stared long enough it would turn into something differently, something easier, something less like Sehyeong. When nothing changed, he logged off.

*

The second time, it was New Year's, and Seongwoong, visiting on his long break, found himself somehow roped into having coffee with Sehyeong. Unlike with chat messages, it was easy to remember the last time they were alone together: the airport before they left for the All Star games in Barcelona, when Sehyeong had taken pictures for Facebook. It'd managed to get online enough that Seongwoong even referenced it in an interview, pretending as he always did when in front of cameras that he barely knew who Mata was, because it would drive Sehyeong crazy and that's how Seongwoong liked him the best, heated up about something stupid and eager to prove himself. But that memory was one of many Seongwoong had put aside for now, in a shoebox, tucked away with all his other memories of leaving SKT. They'd both worn different jerseys, then. Hypothetically, since they hadn't been in jerseys at all at the time.

"I miss it, you know," Sehyeong said out of the blue. When Seongwoong gave him a bewildered look, he clarified, "China, I mean. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret coming back to Korea. I would have done it one way or another, team or no. But…" He broke off, chewing absently at the straw of his iced coffee.

Seongwoong shuffled his coffee between his hands, at a loss as to what to say. What little he knew of Sehyeong's time in China was purely second-hand, no more than what a good fan might know. He smiled absently in Sehyeong's direction. "I feel like I missed the party."

"What party?"

"The old days, when everyone was in China. You and Samsung and those two who came over from KT. Wasn't it Kakao and Rookie?"

Sehyeong shook his head, mouth quirked so that you could see the disconcerting dimple on one side, the one that made him seem like a doty old man instead of the annoying child he was at heart. "We didn't see each other that much, you know. Not as much as you see Jihoon, even. And Mandu."

"It's not the same," Seongwoong sighed.

"Why not?"

He didn't know. He couldn't say what was probably the truth: _because we're older now_. He knew he was projecting onto Sehyeong and the other ex-Samsung members too, a kind of time-lapsed, delayed jealousy that was only expressing itself now. For SKT, who had lost in 2014, who spent that off-season trying to rebuild from the ashes of the death of the sister team system, the entire Samsung roster leaving for China had felt like the ultimate fuck-you. Everything in Korea was dying, and they'd left for greener pastures, for a place where it seemed like it was all beginning, flush with cash and willing to treat them like the stars they were. But that was from the outside. That was what it seemed like to Seongwoong at the time, who hadn't yet thought it was possible for him to leave SKT. He'd never asked Sehyeong what it had actually been like, and that was his own fault. 

There were times when Seongwoong was idly envious of teams like CJ Entus, whose players carried on like they were graduates of the same elite prep school, always appearing in each other's pictures or holding casual cafe fanmeets whenever someone returned from overseas. He'd invested in each iteration of SKT, of course, but it wasn't like they always went out to eat whenever Gyeonghwan visited. Once or twice, he'd gone to karaoke with Eonyoung, but things were always easy with Eonyoung, who'd left on his own terms and was living the life he'd predicted for himself back in 2013 — a championship under his belt, beloved in America, secure in the knowledge that kkOma still loved him, would maybe even offer to take him back one day. For the SKT alumni, that was the resource in shortest supply, and the one that wholly determined how you would interact with the current roster. And anyway Eonyoung was always an exception to the long parade of SKT toplaners and junglers, comfortably self-centered without being egotistical, easy-going while still always getting his way. More than Gyeonghwan, Eonyoung had been the kind of SKT alum Seongwoong aspired to—but instead he'd shot for someplace in the middle and ended up where he was now, on Vici with Jihoon. 

"China's not so far, really," Sehyeong mused. "I could come visit with my girlfriend. Come to one of your games. Cheer for the other team, of course."

"You're still dating that girl in China?"

Sehyeong snorted, looking at Seongwoong with a patient expression, like he was a particularly slow child. "My girlfriend lives in Seoul, you idiot."

"Don't come," Seongwoong said gruffly, embarrassed. "We're only allowed to see each other once a year, so this is it."

"Don't be like that, Ing-ong," Sehyeong sang out, and Seongwoong dodged the hand Sehyeong stretched out to ruffle his hair, maybe, or pinch his cheek. "We might see each other for MSI, you know."

*

They didn't, of course. Neither of them made it to MSI — KT missed it by a hair, Vici by much more. In the break between splits, Sehyeong did come to Shanghai. He didn't give Seongwoong any advance notice, had maybe not told anyone, and instead showed up at the RNG gaming house like the news of the death of particularly rich but unknown uncle, or so Seongwoong was told later, taking the team out to a dinner of seafood hotpot and magnanimously footing the bill. Afterwards, Sehyeong bullied him over text until Seongwoong agreed to come out, and they met at a place in Seongwoong's neighborhood, which Sehyeong said he knew from experience was open late and had cheap beer and decent _xiao chi_.

"No girlfriend?" Seongwoong clinked the necks of their beer bottles together. "No LPL game?"

"I didn't come to see you," Sehyeong said.

There was a long stretch of awkward silence after that, and Seongwoong drank too much of his beer while he tried to think of something to say. "Do you want to meet up with— with Seungbin?" Seongwoong offered, then blanched when Sehyeong stared back at him, completely blank, as if he didn't even recognize the name.

"Why?"

Seongwoong shook his head. "You're a cold man," he teased. "You forget things so quickly."

"I remember the important things," Sehyeong said, shrugging. "And you're one to talk. What about you? Want to come have a drink with me and _Hyeokkie_?"

It was the nickname more than anything that made Seongwoong wince. SKT had always been a team of nicknames, but Seongwoong had never called Sanghyeok that when they played together, and Sehyeong of all people knew that. "It's not the same," Seongwoong said, miffed. "We weren't, you know." When he looked over at Sehyeong, he saw that Sehyeong was doing the thing where he stared straight ahead, not saying anything, one side of his mouth crooked up in a small smile. "Ah, shut up," Seongwoong griped.

They drank their beer meditatively, out of things to say to each other for the moment. Honestly, Seongwoong didn't think he'd lied when he told reporters back in 2016 that he wasn't close to Mata anymore. By 2016, he hadn't had a proper conversation with Sehyeong for years. From time to time they passed each other, not ships in the night, but cars on a long road trip headed to different destinations at different speeds but sometimes parallel for snatches of time. Their careers were doomed to peak and crash in syncopation, shifted wave functions, and though they both had a bad habit of going back to the same handful of teammates and reference points in their lives, the habit never seemed to stretch back far enough to encompass BBT and that moment in 2012 when it had seemed possible that Sehyeong could have been Bengi's Poohmandu or Seongwoong Mata's Dandy. Looking back at that time in the cold light of day, or at least the hindsight of two people in the mid-20s drinking Tsingtao in a small, grimy half-bar and lost in their own heads, Seongwoong rather thought they'd turned out to be better players and people because of the separation, and suspected that Sehyeong would, after a certain mandated amount of griping, agree with him.

Still, it was 2017, and it was, if nothing else, a good year to remember the past. Sehyeong had come back to China for a reason, and it wasn't for Seongwoong, that much Seongwoong did believe. But it was Seongwoong Sehyeong had asked to meet, not Seungbin or anyone on RNG. There was something in that that Seongwoong could unwind, sort through and tease out, like a champion long out of meta that was suddenly back in vogue for a patch.

Seongwoong cleared his throat, and Sehyeong raised his eyebrows at him from behind his round, owlish glasses. "Do you ever think it could have happened for us?" Seongwoong asked. He was annoyed to realize he was peeling the label off the beer bottle, a sign that he was nervous. "Like, back then. Could we have ended up a championship team?"

Sehyeong narrowed his eyes, telegraphing doubt through every pore. "When?"

"If in the beginning, with Loco—"

"Rewind, reboot?" Sehyeong cut in with a wry smile.

Seongwoong paused, unable to place the reference. When he finally got it, he shrugged, but with a smile. "Why not?"

"No," Sehyeong said without hesitation. It stung, even though Seongwoong knew it meant nothing, that it was old history, and not even history but a hypothetical they hadn't chosen for a reason. He opened his mouth to argue, but Seheyong plowed on. "You and I were always doomed anyway. You're the kind of jungler who only loves top laners."

It was too cute to be anything but a joke wrapped around a cutting truth. Seongwoong laughed it off but felt it land anyway, like a heavy hand clapping him on the chest. "I'm just a type to you too," he protested, grasping at anything to throw back at Sehyeong. "You're the kind of man who only falls in love with junglers."

"Not anymore," Sehyeong said coolly. He turned away from Seongwoong, expression almost philosphical as he drained the rest of his beer. "I don't love anyone, anymore."

*

After that, the only thing to do was to go out for another drink, or three. The past felt oddly off limits, so instead they talked in generalities about China: where Seongwoong was living and the greasiness of the food and how little Chinese Seongwoong had learned ("Because you're old and your brain has ossified," Sehyeong declared with relish, and swatted at Seongwoong when Seongwoong snapped, "We're _the same age_ , Sehyeong"), and when that was over, about their teams and the summer split.

"It's good that you're doing well," Sehyeong said, and when Seongwoong, suspicious about such a generous assessment from Sehyeong, quizzed him, admitted that he hadn't watched many of Seongwoong's games, just the ones against RNG, and at 1.5 speed, which Seongwoong had expected and wasn't offended by. On the other hand, Seongwoong had barely watched any of the LCK games, not even the headliner ones. "I find Longzhu more interesting," he joked, and Sehyeong pinched his hip, hard.

"What kind of pro are you?" he scolded, "taking Korea so lightly."

"LPL is the future," Seongwoong said, both because he knew it would make Sehyeong mad, and also because he felt that it was true, even though these days, he had a sinking feeling he wouldn't be a part of that future. It had the intended effect: Sehyeong dragged Seongwoong into a taxi, back to his hotel room, pointing bossily at his bed until Seongwoong sat down on it. Sehyeong toed off his own shoes then, stretching out on his stomach by Seongwoong's side, not touching, but settling in all the same.

With anyone else, Seongwoong would have thought this was a come-on, would have been wary, but it was only Sehyeong, who did actually pull up a VOD of KT's second match against SKT. Seongwoong sat stiffly upright all through the first map, but by map two he felt his back start to protest, and he too lay down on the bed, close enough that he could almost tuck his head against Sehyeong's shoulder. He didn't.

Sehyeong watched VODs mostly in silence, only occasionally grunting whenever he spotted Deft making a particularly risky move or when he saw himself on a good engage. Despite years of professional play, Seongwoong was still fond of league, still liked the "LCK style," the controlled vision and the jungler like a firefly flitting through the map lighting up the dark.

When it was over, Seongwoong looked over and saw that Sehyeong had fallen asleep, his head on the comforter and his glasses shoved up around his forehead, his hand still holding his phone up at the right angle for both of them to see. Seongwoong, grinning, pulled out his own phone and took a picture. For a moment he considered uploading it somewhere. Not Facebook, which Seongwoong hardly used anymore. Maybe on one of his many Chinese SNS accounts. He'd caption it "a soccer player taken out by the polearm master," or something. It'd be payback for the All Star event, he thought. But it'd be a call-back few would understand, and maybe not even Sehyeong, which would defeat the purpose.

His phone buzzed in his hand. It was a text message from Jihoon, who sometimes acted like Seongwoong's unofficial manager, though Seongwoong had never figured out whether it was at Jeonghyeon's request or if it was just Jihoon's own fussy personality. _It's late_ , he'd texted, in Chinese of course. _I am not trying to scold you. I just want to make sure you are okay_.

Seongwoong ran it through an automatic translator, sounding out the unfamiliar words, and then ignored it, like he did with most of Jihoon's texts. He suspected that Jihoon sent them less for Seongwoong's sake and more for the sake of practicing Chinese. But Jihoon was right— it was getting late, and anyway, what would he do now that Sehyeong was asleep?

He reached over and took the glasses off Sehyeong's face. Without them, Sehyeong seemed older and younger at the same time. It was easier to see the wrinkles developing on Sehyeong's forehead, the stress lines around Sehyeong's mouth which was, for once, shut and silent. It'd only been five years, Seongwoong thought wryly. They were hardly old men, though Sehyeong liked to carry on like one, but they felt older, living whole years in a few months, surrounded by ever younger rookies with every faster hands and ever better understanding of the game. Their faces belied that strain, and Sehyeong's especially, which had always fluctuated between baby and drunk uncle, though he had never been the youngest or the oldest of his team.

Seeing Sehyeong passed out, defenseless, hardly the shot-caller with a team under his thumb or the cold-hearted Mata that liked to pick up and throw his teammates away like fads, touched Seongwoong unexpectedly. He leaned over so that he was closer to Sehyeong's face, close enough to see the tiny movements of Sehyeong's breathing.

"Sehyeong-ah," he whispered. Sehyeong didn't stir. "I'm leaving," he said.

It came out sounding oddly final. Seongwoong felt a great sadness, unbidden, sweep over him. It wasn't the same kind of sadness he'd felt when he heard the doors of the SKT gaming house close behind him, but it was related, an older cousin of sorts, physical and annoying, like waking up in the middle of the night to a muscle cramp in his leg. Had he ever said goodbye to Sehyeong when they were just starting off their careers, Mata to MVP and Bengi, then Jangta, to SKT T1? There was a schism in his mind, before-SKT and after-SKT, and Seongwoong hated to say it but the things that came before SKT were starting to fade in his memory.

Yet Cho Sehyeong was on both sides of the schism. He had crossed over, a man who knew Seongwoong before he was Bengi, before Bengi knew kkOma and SKT. And now here they were, five years later, on different teams again, saying goodbye again.

"I'll see you around," he told Sehyeong. And knowing that they probably wouldn't, knowing there was nothing more to say, nothing more to do, he sat there still, hand posed over Sehyeong's cheek, for just a moment longer. Just to be sure.

**Author's Note:**

> \- summary stolen from [candlebeck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/263316)  
> \- [locodoco's tweet to scarra](https://i.imgur.com/lMzBz1z.png) about the original quantic team that he wanted to bring over of mata, bengi, dade, and ssumday  
> \- [an inven write-up with pictures and scorelines from mata and bengi's time on bbt, circa winter 2012](http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=49087&sw=BBT&iskin=esports)  
> \- [a young bbt jangta](https://twitter.com/movement_ws/status/697103897182081025), and again [here with bbt mata](https://twitter.com/movement_ws/statuses/601084812187668480)  
> \- [ bengi and mata looking very cozy during the 2014 masters tournament](https://twitter.com/darjeelingblis/status/449570318659485697). this picture and [ this video of them goofing around with piglet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48N_P3BPWzg) is the inspiration for this fic.  
> \- bengi has always been very tsundere about his relationship with mata. in [an interview in 2015](https://barontimer.tumblr.com/post/126002202501/the-successful-return-skt-t1-bengis-visit-to), bengi said that he used to be close to mata, but hasn't talked with him much. yet right before they left for all star in 2016, he and mata met for coffee, and mata even made them take snow selfies together ([which mata posted on facebook for proof](https://imgur.com/a/W7Uaa7J)). [here's mata during the all star games](https://i.imgur.com/Z93mhj8.png) saying he and bengi discussed whether they could be matched together for 1v1s. yet here's bengi [in one of his goodbye interviews](https://slingshotesports.com/2016/12/07/bengi-i-dont-think-ill-go-drinking-with-wolf-again/) saying that he and mata weren't close, "we just kind of say hello."  
> \- title is a rewording of a lyric from wong faye's "[withered flower](http://www.wongfaye.org/fwcds49.htm#flower)": _If I were to say "flowering season's over" / how much do you know of happiness / would you understand?_ in my mind this is an informal trilogy which maybe i will finish one day... when i am dead.


End file.
